Entries from January 2008 ↓

If you had asked me this question several years ago, I would have said either was fine, with a slight preference for literary agents. Now I will tell aspiring authors to definitely try to find an agent before submitting to publishers.

Sending to publishers without an agent is still doable, as editors are always on the lookout for good books, but there are so many compelling reasons for submitting through an agent. Here are some of them.

1. An early second set of eyes. If you can get a reputable agent interested in your manuscript, chances are better that a publisher will like it and buy it. When I was writing my first novel I sent a query letter and the first three chapters to about five literary agents. One contacted me within days and said that when I finished the novel, she’d gladly represent me.

That was the fuel I needed to get going. A New York literary agent was interested in my work, so move over people. Nothing was going to get in my way now. About a year later I finished the novel and sent it to her. She went on and sold the work within days to a new editor at HarperCollins who was interested in the kind of fiction I was writing.

2. A good agent has contacts and knows the publishing houses inside and out. He or she knows which publishers and editors are looking for work like yours. You can research the market and learn some things yourself, but all the research in the world won’t beat having an agent who is meeting and lunching with the editors at publishing houses represent your work. And besides, wouldn’t you rather focus on your writing and let someone else do that stuff?

3. With computers on every desktop, writers are churning out manuscripts faster than ever before. Editors are being flooded with manuscripts. The result is that unsolicited, unagented manuscripts submitted directly to publishers sit in the slush pile longer. When an agent submits a manuscript, editors know that someone who is knowledgeable about the market thinks this is a good book and they will review it far more quickly.

4. If you’re an African American author, the road to publishing glory got a lot bumpier over recent years. Far fewer manuscripts by African American authors are being accepted by publishers now than were in the 1990s. In fact many previously published authors can’t get book deals. A reputable agent can to help smooth the road out a bit.

5. A good agent won’t stop after selling publication rights to a book publisher. He or she will help you try to sell paperback rights, foreign market rights, audio and electronic rights, television and movie rights and more if those markets are appropriate for your book.

6. An agent can likely get you a better financial deal. Need I say more?

Of course, all of this applies only if you’ve got a great manuscript that you have polished to perfection before you submit it.

Photo credit: Sharon Dominick/iStockphoto

When I met B. Smith at her restaurant at Union Station in Washington, DC, my first novel, Sisters and Lovers, had recently been published and her cookbook, B. Smith’s Entertaining and Cooking for Friends, had just come out. We exchanged books and signatures as well as pleasant chat over drinks at her restaurant bar. Little did I know that I would end up spending so much time with my nose buried in the pages of her cookbook.

More than ten years after that meeting, Barbara Smith’s cookbook is still one of my all-time favorites. The recipes are memorable and delicious yet fairly easy to prepare. That’s very important for someone like me, who generally wants to get in and out of the kitchen with as little fuss as possible. I don’t mind cooking, but I don’t want to spend hours preparing a good meal.

The recipe for Cajun Catfish Fingers has become a favorite in our home. I like that I can prepare it and let it marinade in the refrigerator and then come back and cook it later. I’ve prepared it with catfish fingers and fillets and it’s always scrumptious. Guests rave about it.

For more soul satisfying recipes prepared with style, check out B. Smith’s Entertaining and Cooking For Friends at Amazon.

Applications are now being accepted for Congressional Black Caucus Internships for the summer of 2008. Deadline is February 29. Internships are open to full-time college students in good standing. Applicants should have an interest in public service and the legislative process, leadership ability and strong writing skills.

If interested, you better get going. The application process is a detailed one.

CBC Internship Program Information and Application

Lately I’ve been into studying book video trailers with the thought of producing one or having one produced for my next novel. One thing I’ve come to realize is that lack of brevity leads to boredom. Most of them are too long. You should hit the viewer fast and hard and get out. Leave them wanting more. In the age of 30 second commercials, a two to three minute trailer is just too long.

Below is a video trailer for an upcoming book that I think is well done. It’s simple, to the point and best of all only a couple of secs over a minute long. It’s done professionally by a media company called Stonecreek Media Inc. They have other book trailers on their website and you’ll see that they’re generally brief. So if you’re producing these yourself, as a lot of self-published authors are–don’t get so thrilled with your talent as a producer that you overdo it.

I’m not promoting the novel. I haven’t read it, although it does look interesting. I’m merely pointing out what I think is a good book trailer for writers who are producing them or planning to. If you think you might want to check out the novel, it’s called When I’m With You. The author, LaConnie Taylor-Jones, will be touring virtually starting February 1.

LaConnie Taylor-Jones Virtual Book Tour - scroll down to read about the Taylor-Jones virtual book tour.

LaConnie Taylor Jones Web Site

Want to see more book trailers? Featured book trailers.

Several commentators have mentioned that many black women in America are torn between Obama and Clinton, between their loyalty to blacks and their loyalty to women. And as a black woman with many friends who look like me, I can tell you that this may well be true. But there’s something else going on here that hasn’t been talked about much.

As we all know, black women have been here in America since before it was “America,” yet have never had anyone in their liking–or even partially in their liking–serve in the highest office in the land. White women have had whites serve in the office, black men have had men. And we don’t even need to mention white men. But black women? Neither of their two halves have ever been represented.

If either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama is elected as president of the U.S., for the first time ever, black women will experience what it feels like to have someone in office who looks somewhat like them, someone who has had a similar life experience in America.

You might dismiss this as irrelevant, yet here in America we still often divide society along the lines of race and gender–the candidates themselves have even bickered back and forth about it. I’m no psychologist but I expect that an Obama or a Clinton victory could be big for the psyche of black women and especially for that of young black girls. I think it will do something to the psyche of all Americans but none more so than black women and girls.

I won’t get into the “we shouldn’t decide on a president based on race or gender” debate because I agree with that. I don’t even need to have that discussion because, for me, both of these candidates are qualified for the job. Both candidates are extremely intelligent and able to quickly grasp the issues. Clinton, with her front row seat in the corridors of power and time spent in the Senate, is ready to lead us in these turbulent times.

Obama has had a more moderate amount of experience but he has the ability to move mountains with his oratory–no small matter in my book. I see Obama as a sort of Reagan: someone who has a vision and the ability to inspire many of us and who is wise enough to appoint competent and experienced people to bring that vision to life for us. The difference between Reagan and Obama, at least for me, is that I didn’t always agree with Reagan’s vision for America. I do agree with Obama’s.

So Obama or Clinton–take your pick, hopefully based on the issues and how you think they will deal with them. The election of either will be good for the psyche of black girls and women. The only thing better to my way of thinking will be when one of our young black girls or women, who is probably watching this election unfold now, grows up and becomes president herself.

“Happy Birthday” to my Alpha Kappa Alpha friends. I’m not an AKA but I did have the opportunity to interview Linda White, former national president of AKA, for my photo-essay book Jewels: 50 Phenomenal Black Women Over Fifty. And Michael Cunningham took a charming photograph of her for the book.

We met when she was attending an AKA conference in the Washington DC area, and I learned a lot about the history of the sorority and its valuable contributions to society. White spoke with special pride when she talked about the wonderful work the sorority does for children here in the U.S. and around the world in the areas of education and health. I naturally enjoyed hearing about the Young Authors Program for children and the moving story she told about the finalists meeting Laura Bush at a convention in 2004. It was also inspiring to see the love and unity among sorority members.

So, happy 100th Alpha Kappa Alpha and here’s to 1000 more!

Know what the biggest obstacle is to finishing that novel you’ve always dreamed of writing? YOU! A million things are going on in your life that you have to deal with day after day after day–the hubby, the kids, the significant other, the job, errands, the blues, etc. And you can’t put a lot of that aside–or so you think. But I’m here to tell you that if you ever want to get that novel written, you have got to stick some writing time up there at the top of that list or it will never get done. Squeeze in a half hour or hour in the quiet, wee hours of the morning, during your lunch break, or at night after the kids are in bed.

Before you know it, you’ll have 25 pages, then 50, then 100, and by then, nothing will keep you away from it. So somehow, someway, right now, you’ve got to make it one of the top two or three priorities in your life–for a while at least. If it’s really important to you, you’ll find a way.

To help you get the writing juices revved up, I’ve listed a few web sites and books that are helpful. Whenever I have trouble getting myself going (yes, published authors have their moments, too), reading an inspirational or instructional book about writing helps.

Web Sites on Writing

African American Literature Book Club (www.aalbc.com). Great discussion boards, articles, and book reviews.

Black Writer’s Reunion and Conference (www.blackwriters.org). Once the web site of the African American Online Writers Guild, it is now the website for an annual conference for authors and aspiring authors. Next conference will be held June 20-21, 2008 in Tampa Florida. More than 30 workshops will be offered by accomplished authors on the craft of writing, the business of writing and writing careers and screenwriting.

Books on Writing

Writing is subjective in so many ways and taste in writing books often is also. I chose these books because they helped me. They have been around for a while but the words within are timeless.

Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work, by Bell Hooks. Most notable for women writers; covers a range of issues related to writing including the politics of publishing.

Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, by Natalie Goldberg. Spiritual and inspirational.

The Art and Craft of Novel Writing, by Oakley Hall. Old but if you like a more instructional (rather than inspirational) approach to learning, this may be the book for you; might be hard to find, try Amazon.

Got any writing tips? Feel free to share them with us.

Illustration credit: Ragnarocks/iStockphoto

The left lane on the highway is for passing but it seems that too many folks didn’t get the memo. They drive long and slow in the left lane and mess things up for the rest of us. Come on now, you know who you are and you should know better. If you don’t, I’ll spell it out for you.

If you’re driving under the speed limit on the highway, stay out of the left lane please!

Finally some justice for the rest of us. Slow drivers beware!

CNN Video of Cops Bustin’ Slow Pokes

Illustration credit: Cruz Puga/iStockphoto

The movie adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” will air on ABC on February 25, 2008. The smashing cast includes Sean Combs, Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald, Sanaa Lathan and John Stamos.

The film has also been selected to be screened at the Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2008. According to ABC, this will be the first time that a broadcast network film will be featured at the festival. Talk about stellar! This film has blockbuster written all over it.

According the ABC Television Network, the special three-hour television drama portrays a brief period of time in the life of the Younger family, living and struggling on Chicago ’s South Side in the 1950s, as they anxiously await the arrival of a $10,000 life insurance check made out to Lena Younger (Phylicia Rashad, “The Cosby Show”), the family matriarch, from the estate of her late husband, Walter Lee. Everyone in the family has their own ideas about how they plan to use their new-found wealth and are eager for their new lives to start.

Now for a bit of history about this groundbreaking production: “A Raisin in the Sun” was the first play written by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway. It premiered in 1959 with a cast that included Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Diana Sands, Ruby Dee and Louis Gossett Jr. A Columbia Pictures feature with the same cast followed in 1961.

In a later stage adaptation, Phylicia Rashad won the Best Actress Tony Award, becoming the first African American actress to ever win the Tony in this category. Audra McDonald won the Best Featured Actress Tony Award for her role in the play, and Sanaa Lathan was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress for her performance.

Sean Combs appeared opposite Halle Berry in “Monster’s Ball” and made his acting debut in the film “Made.”

The modern popular cast and early acclaim should bring this long-lived production to a whole new generation.

“A Raisin in the Sun” Movie Trailer

Illustration credit: phi2/iStockphoto

I love discovering good websites for authors and book lovers. I found Overbooked.org a few days ago while browsing–a favorite pastime of mine–and I’m still exploring it. Whenever I visit this quirky site I find a new little gem. It’s a cool website for authors and book lovers alike and features both fiction and nonfiction titles as well as old and new titles. It’s got special sections for Christian Fiction, Romance, African-American Fiction, Historical Fiction, Young Adult Fiction and more.

One of the more interesting features for authors–although any book lover can get into this–is Author Connections, where you can list your own book titles with descriptions and post a link to your website or blog. I listed Jewels: 50 Phenomenal Black Women Over 50 (my latest book) and it worked like a charm. This section is shaping into an interesting database and you can even download it. Yep, for free. The database is small now but could be really cool as more people add to it. I haven’t tried to download yet so I can’t say how well that part works. If anyone does try it out, let us know how it goes.

At times, Overbooked seems a bit clunky and outdated, and the navigation can get downright confusing (part of its charm?). Some of the links don’t work properly–for example the link to the “form” that you reach from the Author Connections link in the left-hand menu. Fortunately there’s another way to reach Author Connections, which I posted below.

To its credit, Overbooked does say that the site is under development and that parts of it are experimental–and I gather that you–the visitor–are a part of the experiment. What will you like? What will you avoid like the plague? How will you use it all? To me, Overbooked is an example of both the beauty and the curse of the web. You get to help shape the content but you gotta put up with something a little less than polished–usable certainly but… well, experimental.

Fortunately, there are some really nice features that make it worth the time and a little frustration–such as the many interactive areas, one of which takes you to Yahoo Groups, where you can post comments about books, although most of the comments at present seem to be authors hawking their latest titles. Another interactive area is the Overbooked Wiki, where anyone can post book related info. Again, this is just getting started and few items are listed now but it looks interesting so get on over there and add to it if you’ve got something to share.

A third interactive area looks especially promising and is called a “social network” or “social site.” This is billed as “a new social space for the chronically overbooked” and seems like a place where you can create your own book related group and comment and add photos and videos. How rich is that? I’ll definitely be digging more deeply into this area as it appears to be rather well done.

Overbooked is a volunteer project run by a librarian and it shows. The site was obviously created by someone with a love of books, and it’s a fun site to browse. I’d get in on some of its features now while it’s still young and growing, especially if you’re an author.

Overbooked Main Page

Overbook Author Connections

Overbooked Social Site

Overbooked Wiki